Hawthorne Boulevard Business AssociationÂ
By Bill Levesque
New Year’s Greetings to our Hawthorne business owners, employees, property owners, neighbors and friends. We wish you and your loved ones a healthy and successful 2021.
2020 has been an incredibly challenging year for us all. Some have been fortunate to be able to work from home. Others have had to continue to go to work to maintain their income. Others have lost their jobs. Our businesses have struggled to keep their doors open while contending with an unpredictable impact from the virus.
On Thanksgiving, the Boulevard was used as a poster for angry, organized people to deface walls and break windows to let the world know they believed that destroying other people’s property was an answer to their pain. On Friday and Saturday, properly masked and distanced neighbors, friends, employees and owners scraped, cleaned, painted and power-washed storefronts from SE 32nd Pl. to SE 42nd Ave. Thanks go out to them and to those who purchased raffle tickets towards a fund to assist businesses with their resulting expenses. Graffiti removal is ongoing and appreciated.
Hawthorne’s Board of Directors is working on establishing a District organization that will financially assist with the care, maintenance and beautification of the Boulevard and its public spaces. We will welcome input as we continue the process. Â
Thank you to those who have continued to support our businesses through take-out, website shopping, calls and in-store purchases with careful distancing. Vaccine distribution should bring safety and confidence for us to venture back out soon. We hope to learn from the many challenges last year to make this a better, more inclusive and safer community in 2021.Â
Stay up to date with the Hawthorne Boulevard Business Association at hawthorneblvd.com.